Bob Piper has been a Labour Councillor for the Abbey
Ward in Sandwell, West Midlands, for nine years. He is a lifelong supporter of Aston Villa Football Club and a follower of Yorkshire County Cricket Club.
The views expressed here are mine in a personal capacity, not those of the Labour Party, Sandwell MBC, Aston Villa or Yorkshire County Cricket Club. Get it! Mine... just mine!
David Cameron would do well to avoid appearances on programmes like this morning's Andrew Marr show. The shiny-faced one arrived all smiles and cliches, a real Blair clone, and he started quite confidently. The Marr listed all of the spending promises the Tories have made and asked how they were going to be funded. Cameron blathered about "cutting out waste" and "publishing MPs expenses" before falling back on the old Blair line of not preparing a budget for 2010 now.
That would have been OK if Marr had just let it go... but he didn't. Surely, he asked, people have got a right to know how you are going to fund these commitment. Which seemed a reasonable question actually. I mean, if you are going to make spending promises in advance of an election, it doesn't seem to be totally unfair to expect the person making the promises to say how they are going to pay for them. Cameron's veneer, and the heavily ladled make-up, started to crack, his face got distinctly redder, and he started to splutter and stutter.
On the strength of this, his minders would be well advised to keep Dave for the photoshoots, the ITV breakfast sofa and quick news bites rather than allowing him to be questioned in any detail, even by someone relatively safe like Andy Marr.
Yes, after saying he was ready for government, and failing to answer a simple question, Cameron began to waffle like mad. Cue, time to take the dog for a walk. Then it was a bacon sandwich for breakfast. It went down better than any waffle.
Just wait for the complaints to fly into the Beeb that Marr was too hard on Dave. There was pathetic whining that Dimbleby gave silly baffled Boris a hard time. Why can't these Tories stand up to any reasonable questioning? Heaven help Londoners if that blunderer wins, and us if the Tories win the GE. They've threatened to destroy the Beeb for starters.
On the other hand the Tories are not the only ones making unfunded promises-How many billions is the governments income going to fall short of planned expenditure this year even according to Alistair Darling's generally acknowledged to be overoptimistic projections?
April 27, 2008 11:07 AM | permalink
Yes, after saying he was ready for government, and failing to answer a simple question, Cameron began to waffle like mad. Cue, time to take the dog for a walk. Then it was a bacon sandwich for breakfast. It went down better than any waffle.